Dismounting from their mules within the court, before the chapter-house,
the captive ecclesiastics, preceded by the sheriff were led to the
principal chamber of the structure, where the Earl of Derby awaited
them, seated in the Gothic carved oak chair, formerly occupied by the
Abbots of Whalley on the occasions of conferences or elections. The earl
was surrounded by his officers, and the chamber was filled with armed
men. The abbot slowly advanced towards the earl. His deportment was
dignified and firm, even majestic. The exaltation of spirit, occasioned
by the interview with Demdike and his wife, had passed away, and was
succeeded by a profound calm. The hue of his cheek was livid, but
otherwise he seemed wholly unmoved.

The ceremony of delivering up the bodies of the prisoners to the earl
was gone through by the sheriff, and their sentences were then read
aloud by a clerk. After this the earl, who had hitherto remained
covered, took off his cap, and in a solemn voice spoke:--

"John Paslew, somewhile Abbot of Whalley, but now an attainted and
condemned felon, and John Eastgate and William Haydocke, formerly
brethren of the same monastery, and confederates with him in crime, ye
have heard your doom. To-morrow you shall die the ignominious death of
traitors; but the king in his mercy, having regard not so much to the
heinous nature of your offences towards his sovereign majesty as to the
sacred offices you once held, and of which you have been shamefully
deprived, is graciously pleased to remit that part of your sentence,
whereby ye are condemned to be quartered alive, willing that the hearts
which conceived so much malice and violence against him should cease to
beat within your own bosoms, and that the arms which were raised in
rebellion against him should be interred in one common grave with the